The most Hunter Pence photo ever

As The Stew reported earlier, Hunter Pence is having a hard time right now for the San Francisco Giants in the NLCS. There's no sense dwelling on the numbers. You can find them all over the Internets. But Pence remains one of our favorite players (he was the first Answer Man Q&A victim, after all, when he was a rookie with the Astros in 2008.)

But he's also got the big socks, the intense eyes, the awkward everything. It's pure joy watching him play the outfield, even if he looks like he's doing it for the first time, every time. And to see him take violent practice swings at the plate, Pence really should shout "Heeeeeeere's Johnny!" when he takes a hack for real.

And photographer Chris Lee of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has captured Pence's essence like words cannot with the shot you see above from the action Wednesday night in Game 3 against the Cardinals. Nobody else in the entire league makes a routine fly ball to right field (hit by Allen Craig) look so darned adventurous. The legs are strutting, the posture is bending, the balance is unbalanced, the beard is bearding, the eyes are wide, the tongue is out — just waiting to be bitten accidentally.